Lupe Fiasco - Schemes lyrics

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Lupe Fiasco - In

(Talking)

I was born in a small village

I was still a child when we were raided by soldiers

Foreign soldiers

Torn from my elders, I was made to speak their language

With each new post, my masters changed

Along with the words they made me speak

With each change, I changed too

My thoughts, personality, how I saw right and wrong

Words can kill (Pharaoh)

Time and again, the country was ruled by a foreign tongue

When he was young boy, he lost his native language

The bedrock for any developin child

His country, his family, his face, his identity

Everythin was stolen from him

(Verse)

Meet me on the corner, I be waitin on you

100 years of better right into forever

Fire on my feathers, far from out of heaven

Fight without a weapon, life without a lesson

Lost, I'm my own boss, pay my own cost

Fill my own goals, see my own hopes

Tired of all of this, wish I had a switch

One kiss then you cut me off (Pharaoh)

Knowledge is the power, college is for cowards

Hollering for hours, swallowin the sour

Skin stuck around the rims, peekin in on a life so sweet

The other side made it, why don't we?

(Talking)

Yeah, yeh

Since ancient times, every civilization's ruler has had the same idea.

When people unite under one will, they become stronger than the sum of their parts and what do rulers use to bring people together? Language.

"This world will become one, I have found the way.

Race, tribal affiliations, national borders - even our faces will be irrelevant.

The world that the boss envisioned will finally become a reality and it will make mankind whole again

(Verse)

Found a friend in the words and my words and it works

Take away the pain, take away the hurt

Make a way to make a change, make it sane

Specially if you plan on stayin on this Earth

Low to the lows, high to the highs

Eyes to the sky, strive to revive, dyin to survive

Pool full of cries but it's cool, I'm still alive

And every breath is every left soul

And the family never kept whole

In the slum, wanna quest to be the best of bein less

Never let go, the best road to the next level

And the scenes where it's mean to do the right thing

Not to be a good king but the best devil

So it's horns for the crown, torn from the ground

Roses by the roots stolen from the roofs on parade days

Look at them rain down

I was brought here a slave

But I leave here a pharaoh

(Talking)

America is a country of liberty, a meetin of immigrants

Instead of simply assimilatin, its citizens live alongside others

So the major sought a system that used information

Words to control the subconscious (Pharaoh)

In his eyes, the greatest symbiotic parasite the world's ever known isn't microbial, it's linguistic

Words is what keep civilization, our world, alive

(Outro)

(Pharaoh)

You are what you say you are, the coolest

Won't you just shine down?

If you are what you say you are, the coolest

Why won't you just shine down?

Lupe Fiasco – Valleys

(Intro)

Pharaoh, pharaoh?

Pharaoh

Cuz you’re fallin without again

(Verse)

Dollar mission, Mississippi masala gettin

Guava Casaba melons, gettin a spot at competition

Titties and teeth, so silly of me, no really, it’s free

Ay you can use the phone like a new computer wand

That’s an Ethernet pun, cuz dial-up’s all done

When it took 20 minutes just to download one

Ay, you got a fine face, also a dime in your behind

Please can I find some time space to find base

Kinds of rhymes to describe how you’re designed great

And maybe remove the mind free, yeah

Like it’s overhead creams at the train yard

That Tom Cruise used in the War of the World's

Before the aliens came part

Remember that, oh, not a fan of the sci-fi?

Like dial-up’s not a fan of the wi-fi

I’m in your eyes like little reflective little pools of tie-dye

And it’s 1972 and I’m too long-haired high guy

Drivin a Volkswagen Beetle off into the California twilight

I usually got top cuz I’m a guy right

But if you’re gay that’s straight too

Hey, I don’t hate, I got a couple of friends who went vi twice

Did that arrive right?

Do you like whole stories or just the highlights

Cuz I like to write your life story on the sky

Made of Lite Brights, remember those?

Ten years old, let me guess your age

You were a ten, ten years ago

Am I right, who you callin?

Maybe New Orleans

Where your mother lives with your brother's kids

Because he locked up cuz

Of what some other mutherfucker did

Love to fib bout the Fibonacci sequence

Do you flicker like Liberace Sequins

Or maybe twinkle like little stars

And tingle like little scars

I run a wrinkle with you like a car hood

And crash test and b-box while we re-rocks

Saul William’s doin the slam set

Then wrap like saran over the pan

Keep the yams fresh, sweet

5 different songs, over five different beats

And this one’s called Valley

I wrote it on the plane in the chair by the galley

On the way to Cali, chicken in the salad

Sounds like a ballad

You loyal, so I’m Khaled

Buy your mama a palace, scratch that

Buy your mama what matters

Data says dollars hotter than two nevadas

Burnin hole in the pockets

And in the wallets of all the rappers

Trappers attractin all the yellowbone Instagrammers

But what about us?

Pharaoh x 3

(Verse)

It burns inside like lactic acid

Exorcise demons, turn em into gods

Turnin in the rods for the bags of the catfish

I don’t believe that God is a black man

Spoiled child gettin robbed for his black mans

Mars and other stars in the CAT scans

Back when I listened to Killer Priest

Had my mind thicker and bigger than Philip Heath

Walkin round in kufis with sunnis with dhikr beads

Rememberin the movies my duty was killin beats

Social villain unwillin to live in peace

I told you children I’m wieldin a livin beast

Streets, this is where Helen and Ellen meet

So you can get lost like Gilligan on the beach

The players gettin mad they not kickin it with the freaks

Cuz they took away they pussy and givin it to the geeks

Like us, paradigm shifter, South Carolina Nine shrine shine giver

But not enough dimes to be a crime line tipper

The difference between "nigga", and "nigger"

Ah, Bernie Sanders need a Nike deal

Then I might consider that, he might be real

If Phil Knight, knight him then I might like him

Until then children, enjoy the white icin on the cake

Cake x 4

On the cake, cake, cake, cake, cake x 3

Yeah, yeah, pharaoh, height, yeah, yeah , al’ght

(Verse)

Freestyle off the top, sitting on the stool on the block

Watchin for the cops, watchin for the thots, watchin for the shots

I’m watchin for a lot, I gotta use my eyes cuz they use me

Cuz to em I’m like a price, so I say surprises

And they don’t deprive us, I just demise us

And nuthin ever lies yes, on my premisises

Watched for my demises

Maybe might like em, til then just enjoy the white icin on the cake

Cake x 4

The cake, cake, cake, cake, cake x 3

(Outro)

[Ameri- the cake, cake, cake, cake, cake

The cake, cake, cake, cake, cake x 3 ] x 2

Lupe Fiasco - Of

(Verse)

Young peerer over Dilla

Behind the mic like the will of a vehicular killer

The threadin, put it together like a three minutes to weddin

In less than three minutes of meddlin, over melody and grand pian peddlings

I do represent the mind like IQ-s, intelligent signs in our kind’s a haiku (Pharaoh)

Cobra kai turn high top fade to Caillou, who inspect a man stance and fight the kaiju

Way beyond a hundred kicks, breakin bottom bricks and he on number 6

This is that “there should be a name for it”

Hideo should go and make a game for it

Mamma should make you change for it

Kinda rap that sends jaguars runnin back into the rain forest

Plans over panic, when Superman scans deadpan over planets

Make the fat man hand over the ham jam and lamb and Spam sandwich

A face black eyes and hand-to-hand damage

Make them believe you can manage to have swam the span famine

Sesame the bird big, and the master plan mammoth

The difference, the difference

(Pharaoh)

Lupe Fiasco - Kings

(Verse)

As I proceed to go dig throw an old crib

Hold kids as I blunder throuw a pharaoh house

Thug Bones in guild did the parrow piss

But arrow heads then let the marrow out

I literally won't leave lettuce since I've received the brita

And when the sea leaves the land, who will feed the rivers, hu?

Crazy busy, make me, make me miss you even when I'm with ya

If a phone calls in the club, but the music is too loud round to hear it

Do I still have to clear it?

Example: now I don’t list samples in my lyrics

Myth be told, sixty souls perished in the parish bill

Wrote a pair of wills on fifty scrolls with a pair of quills

Answered the question 'Americause?' Amerikills

Been livin inside in envelopes with a pair of sills

Tall man like terror bills downfall from a pair of stilts wearing heels, that's high

As I proceed to find silver line in a stalagmite

Cat eyes and scarab crowns on a black grace

Too wave, not to see bubonic plague in your rat face

Practice on the utterin until it lactates

Then begin the butterin of the pancakes

Push it to the marging flood the garden to the land lakes

Associate with mates who spit inside of they handshakes, yea

(Pharaoh x 3 )

Yeah x 3

(Verse)

As I walk throw the shadow of San Fernando Valley

Walking like fingers how, how they rally on pianos

Up and down the dial until I WKRP, in Cincinnati

Let's settle on the station like "Last gas for hunnit miles"

May I have this last dance?

Grab her hands then proceed to do the running child

Vindaloo the stomach growls, introduced to sumethin' wild

Until we see civilization, Walmarts and Chik-a-fallacious

Patients, our art isn't intimidation

But you can't process the progress

If you get your style ques from outta Complex

Na nigga, that ain't hot

No, no and no shots, no boas and no thots

I walk them over the motorboat on the yachts

To go so sober on all the shirk and on overdose on salats, hu?

Francis Ford Coppola’s spoken plots

Hyannis Port localists rolling in open drops

Titanic corpse smoking from openin' those with chops

Like Cannock moonlit leader loakin' with loaded Glocks, hu!

Pharaoh

Lupe Fiasco – Pyramid

[Verse]

Metabolize on the scattered snare

With the banana pies that he don't like

Like mosquito bites on the shins or ankles

Cuz in the end it bends

Let's begin and pretend it's tranquil

Upset stomach on the boat to Lucerne to see the lion

Carved in the wall by the pond

To commemorate the soldier dyin over old divines

Ergo sum empire, not the inch but the entire

More pills mean more spills by the whore house with the extra door

To let the divorced out with force

And other course routes, of course

Cleopatra speakin patois with a mouth full of that jerk chicken

With roaamer hits for the curse liftin

Onion bread with the shine to it

It's up and fair to define stupid

But she ain't dumb, at least she know that he ain't fun

And neither's Europe, even to the Middle Eastern tourists

Well all the spin by the drum low

How many millionaires can the slums hold?

Potentially all of us, this whole plane and all the bus

As juggernauts bust through a wall of trust

You strain to see throw the fog of dust

Like spaghetti for the meatballs

Of that step, Parmesan immaculates

Head over heels like a back is flipped

Japanese don’t see no main list

Love labors, get her backstage like the judge chambers

Everyone under the sun loves hugs from a young stranger

Or do us, oh fool us

On boats in the Bay of Pigs

Runaways wait with the wayward kids

And the underpaid slaves from Jamaican gigs

Don't shoe us, cuz we ain't Bush

We ain't hoofs don't boo us cuz we ain't cooked

But who else could hook the fufu up

In this book I mean, dumplings with dark continents

Dumb things even bar common sense

Sometimes, sometimes, sometimes a terpin intertwines with the turbans

Vines with turbans and removes the minds of serpents

Detergents, deterrents and permits, to build a hut

Twerk team, Operation Build-a-Butt

Great like gill the sleeve

As a king breathes throw a silver sieve

Jack and Jill ain't up that hill enough

Filterin lean throw a gold grill

Theorize things from swole hills

They came became what that po' kills

Throw ho drills on that hotel, that'll oil spill

Lookin at space from a submarine

Putting that bass in the club machine

Pushin that cake till it mush in that face ain't no love between

Fancy ass man wearin glove and rings

Flyin round town in a tub of wings

Found out how to make love to fiends

He mixin that fuzz with the drug of dreams

She too teenage to have a drug of choice

But she fuck with that Royce like she love Detroit

She rollin'

(Outro)

(Pharaoh x 2 )

Lupe Fiasco - Schemes

(Intro)

Alright it's time to go to sleep

What?

Can you please tell us a bedtime story?

Uh, it's late man

Ok, ok ok, check this out, listen

(Verse)

Cold killer, bold old gorilla

Bold as a font with the thickness

Old as yellow gold in a Chevrolet with a stick shift

The story goes his mother left him on a church step

First step was out the front door then the first left

Down the block to the spots where the worst kept

30 years later got a thirty tier caper

To shoot up the scene and scheme

Plot, broken all down to two rounds of scotch

A pound means now and we too down to stop

Say got enough round for two thousand cops

Military grade, these things shoot round the block

Sh threat, check

The dame will hang out like chains round the neck

He ever seen her before, her face don't connect

No, so keep it on the low, go

Seizes her by the arm

Looks right into the eyes cause these be the charms

Sheba, King Tut suite at the Khalifa

Tied to a chair gettin burned by cohibas

A well dressed thug who run clubs in the Koreas

The room smells like fresh hand made tortillas

He recognized the tattoos of a real big Maui brother

Known for bad news when his cash rules

Are you familiar with the shell of the cashews?

As he holds the needle up to the light bulb

White girls into drunk, he stands up runs to the window and jumps

Aim for the pool, splash

The impact from that almost split him in half

Voice from the past asks did he enjoy the bath

Laughs with his arm in a cast, hold up

(Hook)

Never what it seems, everybody wanna be seen

On the cover of a magazine

Everybody want big things

Everybody want big dreams

Everybody want bling bling

Everybody wanna be the king

Everybody bling

Everybody sings

Everybody wan’ big thing

In the valley of kings and pyramid schemes

It's never what it seems, everybody wanna be seen

On the cover of a magazine

Everybody wanna sip lean

Everybody want a big dreams

Everybody want bling bling

Everybody want C.R.E.A.M

Everybody wanna have a team

Everybody wanna be the king

Everybody want a big scheme in the land of pyramid schemes

Ah,

(Verse)

As he tried to do the math with Smearcon the fed

The contract states from here upon you're dead

The girl at the bar is an underworld star

Settlin on debts with north Zanzibar

Your names on the list, kitsch

A 100 million dollars worth of high grade fish

Tuna, Tokyo cartels worlds biggest consumer

A rumor bout a schooner off the coast of Montezuma

They say you slit the throat of a well known kahuna

Then torched the boat and fled into the Dunya

You’re hated more than a Kalua pig at a Jumu'ah

They want your head on a platter, not right now but sooner

I got you a forty five and a Mitsubishi tuner

Wait, wait I've never been to Costa Rica

And then it all comes back

Just as Smearcon falls with a ninja star in his head like

Then they slowly enter the room

I grabbed a forty five, the ninja stars resume

I catch him in the cast and answer em with a blast, blow

Three more shots for good measure

Only exit is another window, whatever

Short fall to the roof of the car

Then I get in, left arm covered in ninja stars

Then a zero to a hundred baby real quick

Look around the car for something else to kill with

Lamborghini headlights in the rear view

These Parisian streets not meant to veer throw

Especially with just one hand

I let go to shoot back but the gun jams

Mitsubishi not built to outrun Lambs

So they gaining, heavy raining

Rear view explodes from deadly aiming

Arm painin, blood drainin

Pains, head for the Louvre

Drive right through the glass pyramid with dope moves

A little shook from the landin

Drivin throuw the Louvre in a rally car with great handlin

Was at the Mona Lisa

Stop the car right in front of the dealer have a breather

Press play on the radio, voice from the speaker

Says get to Belgrade and take an ad out in the daily Politika

They says for a good time call this Ecuador slash Venezuelan chica

Next day at the airport meeted by a greeter who looks Corsican but Greeker

A little older wearin Michael Jordan sneakers

But I follow the leader

1995 S Class, in the back seat is a dead man who's car I just crashed

Smearcon's alive, audience now wonders how Smearcon survived

Let alone not be hurt, he taps a metal plate in his head from his Afghanistan work

What Visine for red retinas, what else would you expect from head predators

Ex-lecturer, at Exeter, the dean too secular

So now I'm totes hecklers, everywhere

Now Smearcon's on the team, so everybody's down for the scheme

(Verse)

Now it's time to finish this, gettin too late for international syndicates

To which the driver reveals his membership

This won't end well, he pulls out a grenade and says

(Verse)

Psych sucker, Smearcon is back

You really think that he would go out like that?

They're under attack, MAC under the back

(Outro)

I'm just playin, it's really over

Its the end of the tape

Thank y'all man

Pharaoh Height 23, yea

Shout to DJ BUSY

You know how we do

Hope you all enjoyed it man, yeah

Scott what up

What you throw I couldn't do this no more, hu?

Man listen, lets let this play out

Bogglin' Giblets